Ralph Anderson is a Senior Consultant with MRC McLean Hazel. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2006 with a BSc (Hons) in Geography. Whilst there, courses in ‘locational modelling in economic and social geography’, ‘tourism marketing and development’ and ‘inside the city: patterns, processes, problems’ expanded his interest in transportation. His dissertation evaluated Edinburgh’s transport system and investigated people’s attitudes towards and awareness of the city’s transport problems and solutions. This has provided him with knowledge of the Edinburgh area, including a broad outlook on transport, spatial, social and environmental perspectives. Ralph is currently completing an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Choosing to remain in Edinburgh after his degree, Ralph took up his appointment with MRC McLean Hazel in 2006. Ralph has provided support on a variety of projects including the preparation of a number of Transport Assessments for new private sector developments; these consist of several residential developments and hotels, an industrial park north of Belfast, a large scale motor racing complex in central Scotland, and the relocation of the University of Edinburgh Vet School campus. Ralph has further experience in site access and parking studies.

He has also been involved in a number of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) study commissions which included producing European BRT system profiles for inclusion in the primary BRT planning guidance document published by the U.S. Federal Transit Administration ‘Characteristics of Bus Rapid Transit for Decision-Making’ (CBRT). He has also participated in conducting a study tour of BRT systems in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven, and providing a route review of potential BRT or tram routes in Belfast. Other experience includes work on the Megacities project for Siemens AG, in particular carrying out detailed research on Shanghai, as well as compiling and analysing comparison data for a range of global megacities. Further project work involved research into transportation issues for ‘Energetica’, a project that aims to promote Aberdeen City and Shire as a global energy hub by boosting research and innovation along a 30 mile coastal strip north of Aberdeen City. Ralph has recently been heavily involved with producing a rail strategy for North Northamptonshire, input into an economic masterplan for NewcastleGateshead, and a modal shift research project for the DfT.

Ralph’s current main responsibility is working as the task manager for the research strand of work forming part of the four year E.U. funded RENAISSANCE project. The project is being carried out as part of the European Commission’s CIVITAS+ City-Vitality-Sustainability initiative to test innovative strategies for clean urban transport.  This involves implementing state of the art transport and urban design initiatives in five historic cities from across Europe. The cities have strong reliance on heritage and tourism and thus the project focuses on providing increased mobility while considering environmental sustainability, the urban environment, and economic development. His role as task manager in the research workstream is to compile state of the art briefing reports on a number of initiatives and to use these to present to the participant cities some key best practice examples relating to their initiatives. A further responsibility is to stimulate cross-fertilisation of research and ideas across the city study groups.

Also in the RENAISSANCE project, Ralph has a leading role in the co-ordination and evaluation of baseline research across the participation cities.

Ralph enjoys living and working in Edinburgh, especially during the vibrant Christmas and summer festival months. He believes Edinburgh is the perfect distance from his home town of Kirkcaldy. When out of the office he enjoys hiking and camping in the Scottish Highlands, golfing, cycling, cooking and most of all rock climbing. His other interests include attending Scotland international football games and socialising.